


From the Ground Up

by strawberriesandtophats



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, John Lives AU, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Shaw's POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-29 05:22:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11434020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberriesandtophats/pseuds/strawberriesandtophats
Summary: In the hours before John woke up in the hospital bed after almost dying on that rooftop, Harold was the most terrifying person in the world.





	From the Ground Up

In the hours before John woke up in the hospital bed after almost dying on that rooftop, Harold was the most terrifying person in the world.

Shaw had seen what happened when the world took Harold away from John and how John would alternatively leave a trail of blood and fire behind him or become eerily calm and focused, taking Finch’s role as the leader of their little group. And she ‘d also seen what happened when John got hurt or went silent on the other line. Harold would worry, and call out to him and scour every video and sound recording he could get his hands on in order to find John.

This was different.

The Harold that was sitting in that uncomfortable chair beside the bed, in his tweed suit and muted tie, looked like John had done when John was ready to burn down the entire world. His fingers flew over the keyboard of his fancy laptop, looking at John‘s medical records as they were typed into the hospital database in between fixing what damage Samaritan had done.

She’d listened to Root wax lyrical about Harold’s skills as a programmer, for days on end. The guy knew what he was doing.

Harold‘s eyes were hard and merciless, but there was horror in the way his jaw was set and fear in how his entire body was angled to the door where the doctors would come in to tell them how the surgeries had gone. But whatever mercy he had, which he had in spades, she’d seen it herself, was gone.

Shaw knew that the Harold she was seeing was not his core personality, but what happened when he had been pushed so far beyond his worst fears that the only things left were defense mechanisms and rage and love.

He stayed in the hospital as much as he could, only leaving for trips to one of his safehouses for a shower and a quick meal. Then he’d return, asking the doctors pointed questions and sleeping far too much in the chair beside John ‘s bed.

“He’ll be alright,” Shaw said, when they were allowed to see John, who was sleeping the sleep of those on the good pain medication and with far too many limbs in casts and too many doctors hovering around his bed. The doctors had balked when she’d used their own lingo when they tried to bullshit Harold about John’s recovery time.

Harold only looked up from watching John’s chest rise and fall, a worried line between his eyebrows.

“I appreciate your support, Miss Shaw,” he said, folding his hands in his lap.

Shaw looked at John’s medical chart and nodded. “He’ll just refuse to die, like usual.”

Harold nodded, barely able to keep his eyes away from John’s face, which was swollen and covered in multicolored bruises.

Even though Harold and Nathan had been the start of their team, as they’d built the Machine, John and Harold had been the core of it. If you removed them for a long period of time, things started falling apart quicker than an underdone cake.

If they were going to die, they would have died together.

And now, they would live together.

“He’s still breathing,” Harold had said, after a long silence. “And they say that he’ll be able to remember us, if we’re lucky. That’s something.”

It was only a few days later, when John was clear-headed enough to reach for Harold’s hand and cover it with his own bandaged one that Harold’s shoulders relaxed and he melted back into his usual mode of being a quirky but brilliant tech-guy who dressed like a prim and proper librarian, fear fading from his eyes.

She recognized Harold again, as if she’d been looking at a blurry reflection and then been handed a pair of glasses. This was the man who made huffing noises about tailoring and went on and on about dusty old books and shiny new tablets and spent half his time glued to John’s side.

 His whole frame came to life as Harold looked into John’s eyes. It was as if Harold hadn’t seen the sun in years and had just glimpsed the first rays of the sunrise over the skyline.

And just like that, the war against Samaritan was truly over.

The cleanup was left, of course. But this moment, in the hospital room, was the true end of that horrific battle. She smiled, leaning back in her chair.

Shaw left Reese and Finch mostly to their own devices after that, taking Bear out for runs and gets her favorite sandwich to celebrate. On the third day, she answered a phone call from a booth and it lead her to find a set of keys that open their old base. The Library was still in bad shape, smashed glass and broken furniture everywhere.

It took Fusco and her a couple of trips to get rid of all the junk. Leon Tao showed up later that day, looking confused and babbling about phone calls and old debts. But he’d helped them clean up the worst of the mess and handed her a get-well card for John. Bear had climbed the stairs with them, carrying his own toys and placing them in the corner where Finch used to keep the iron tub he used to bathe Bear.

When the guys had left, Shaw had found a faded photo of Nathan in the back of one of the drawers. She’d framed it and put it beside the photo of Root, in a dark purple frame, on the desk.

It took a few more days to get the Library cleaned and set up, but when they were done, it looked even better than before they’d had to abandon it.

Shaw poured fresh water into Bear’s bowl and petted his head before closing the door behind her.

Then she went back to the hospital.

Hundreds of get-well cards greeted her when she entered John’s room. Apparently the baby Machine had sent some sort of a message to many of the former numbers about John’s stay in the hospital while she had been gone and many of them had sent the cards as fast as the mail could carry them.

Harold was smiling and John was dozing.

If there were other teams that the original Machine had made, they could handle whatever disasters the world threw at them. At least for now.

She had other things to take care of.

**Author's Note:**

> Why not write another short fix-it fic, I asked myself. And so I did.


End file.
